FWA is my hometown airport, so I closely watch the developments there (and have done so since I was a child in the 1980s).

Currently (since becoming all-regional in the 1990s), FWA is served by the regional affiliates of DL, NW, UA, AA, and CO. And the only LCC we have is Allegiant Air, which just recently started service there.

Most of the regionals at FWA serve nearby hubs (within an hour or 1.5 hours of FWA), such as ORD, CVG, ATL, DTW, and CLE, with their regional aircraft (CRJs and ERJs for everyone except CO, with BE1900s).

However, the American Eagle route that is the oddball is the 2.5-hour flight between FWA and DFW in an ERJ-145. I have flown that route twice, and may be doing so again in the near future. This route has been in existence since 1999, when it was heavily advertised locally. (Don't forget AA Eagle also serves the ORD-FWA route).

Why did American Eagle start such a route, between its world headquarters and our tiny station (FWA)? Do the load factors and profits justify it? Is it an important route for business travellers, or who does it attract? What's the rationale behind this oddball route at FWA?

A very curious Fort Wayner,
SmithAir747!

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made... (Psalm 139:14)

I can't say for sure -- but coming from a hometown similar in size to FWA (ABI), let me say you should be very happy and not ask any questions! (I would love for ABI to have service to ORD!)

Interestingly, DFW has nonstop service to many small and mid-size cities in this region (FWA, GRR, DAY, EVV, CMI, etc.). My guess is that (1) there are enough passengers connecting from these cities to Mexican destinations that are not served from ORD, or (2) AA is trying to balance the routing of passengers bound for the west coast through DFW rather than ORD, given the delay-prone ORD and the underutilized DFW.

My guess is that ORD is not particularly good for connecting FWA pax to certain parts of the country. For example, for passengers going to/coming from the Southeast U.S., Texas, Mexico, Central/South America/Carribean, it makes much more sense to connect through DFW than ORD. It also gets rid of many double connections that would have to be made to reach certain destinations not served through ORD.

Toledo along with a couple other routes to the upper Midwest, Long Beach, Providence, Long Beach and Lima (Peru) were dumped when American went through its "Everyone feel bad for us because the Wright Agreement is falling apart" stage.

Toledo, along with the other routes, would probably work if they tried them again.

There is a lot of manufacturing, both auto-related and non-auto located in Northeast Indiana / Western Ohio that has ties to operation in Texas, Mexico, and other parts of the US. There is enough demand for DFW and other DFW-exclusive spokes to warrant FWA-DFW service. In addition, it routes some traffic over DFW versus ORD, (e.g., FWA-DFW-SAN vs. FWA-ORD-SAN) which opens up some capacity out of ORD for local ORD based O&D traffic to places like SAN, which is needed since ORD operations are capped due to slot constraints. DFW is virtually limitless in that regard.

My guess is that ORD is not particularly good for connecting FWA pax to certain parts of the country. For example, for passengers going to/coming from the Southeast U.S., Texas, Mexico, Central/South America/Carribean,

I would consider ORD a far better connection point for FWA to the Southeast and The Carribean. DFW is a heck of a backtrack for example FWA-MCO of FWA-SJU than ORD is.

Quoting Ssides (Reply 2):Interestingly, DFW has nonstop service to many small and mid-size cities in this region (FWA, GRR, DAY, EVV, CMI, etc.). My guess is that (1) there are enough passengers connecting from these cities to Mexican destinations that are not served from ORD, or (2) AA is trying to balance the routing of passengers bound for the west coast through DFW rather than ORD, given the delay-prone ORD and the underutilized DFW.

In the case of CMI:

(3) MQ has 3 ERJ's from ORD that RON at CMI for maintenance at CMI-based FlightStar. MQ was impressed by FlightStar's work, and wanted to give them more business. Having their ERJ undergo FlightStar maintenance at CMI made the economics of a daily DFW-CMI flight that RONs at CMI viable.

Also, the reason why FWA got a 5th to ORD and a 3rd to DFW was because of a very generous incentive program through TRIP. One of these days I'll have to look up and see what their loads actually look like from the DOT.

*edit - Toledo - DFW did just fine in terms of passenger numbers...added 1,000 passengers each way, came out to about a 70% load factor. Yields were fairly low due to the timing of the flight. I'm sure if it would've returned as planned in January as an originator/terminator, the flight would've yielded much better and probably even had a better load factor. It's par for the course at Toledo though...always crapped on by the airlines.